Museum News

The Poe Museum has just launched its first i-phone app, an interactive guided tour of the Poe Museum complex and collections that can be run on iPhones, iPads and iPods that have iOS 6+. Whether users visit the museum in person or remotely through this app, they will have an opportunity to explore Poe’s life and literary career through 29 objects in the museum’s world renowned collection. Guests of the museum can use the app as an audio guide featuring museum maps, photos of the artifacts, readings of Poe’s poems and letters, as well as extra information about each object’s provenance and significance.

The Tour has been developed on the MustSee mobile audio guide application. The MustSee app is free to use and can be downloaded from iTunes here. The Poe Museum Self Guided Tour costs 99 cents as an in-app purchase. To get to the audio guide, download the MustSee app and then come back here and tap on the big logo on this page.

The MustSee platform is a mobile guide community platform where organizations and individuals can create guides and set their own price. It includes an iOS application and a website where creators can design and upload their own personalized guides. Current guide developers — including museums, cultural institutions, tour guides and travel companies as well as cultural enthusiasts — are able to create interactive art and travel guides with the MustSee app. App users can find guides created by either professionally, like the Poe Museum’s, or by other users with common interests. Guides are based on the places and items located there and may include audio, text, photos and links to web pages or videos. Guide users can download them directly to their device and can interact with the community of like-minded users by commenting, adding photos, rating and sharing on their email, Facebook and Twitter.

“Many museums have trouble being found by their respective audiences. MustSee provides the Poe Museum to be able to easily create an interactive, audio guide tour for their visitors while exposing the guide to a bigger audience of culture and literary learners,” said John Soppe, CEO of Areté Media, producers of MustSee. “We are providing a free platform to help those institutions and individuals create high quality experiences that will enrich the lives for the MustSee audience.” The price of the app is shared by Apple, the Poe Museum, and MustSee.

If you do not have an i-phone or i-pad, you can still download our audio tour here.